I really enjoyed Season 7's Critical Care. The Doctor is hijacked by an interstellar swindler who has sold him to a medical ward on a space station. With limited medical resources, the station adopts (enslaves itself to) a program to govern who deserves treatment more than others. Soon, the EMH struggles with his impassioned ethics and morality (the desire to help everyone equally) versus the cruel logic of the station's medical care (the allocator.)
These are the episodes that stoked my fire for Star Trek. It rings the same tones of Tuvix and TNG's Measure of a Man. It presents two solid arguments. However, the episode did seem to overlook the other half of the argument in favor of the Doctor's perspective.
But logically, what the station was doing could be considered justified. If 15 people are terminally ill and you only have 10 cures, how do you determine who is worth saving?
Do you administer "first come first serve"? What if the homeless and jobless come first? What if only men come first? Now there's 10 living jobless, inexperienced men and no women. This is the flaw I saw in the Doctor's logic. He wanted to help everyone but when you have only 2 apples and 20 starving children, who eats?
The writer's made this decision easier as it's made clear that level Blue has more medicine than they really need and they are only using the medicine for frivolous treatments, not life or death.
Great episode. I wish it pushed harder for a ethically challenging scenario.
